THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Small traders in the state are perhaps the most perplexed lot as the GST regime draws near. The nearly two-lakh registered dealers themselves have a clutch of issues to deal with. There is the issue of inter-state purchase to be sorted out. They are still uncertain about the existing stock they have with them. The GST regime will swoop down in two days, but small traders are worried that the GST Council has not yet released the new Sales Bill format.

If registered dealers have enough on their hands, the ‘13 lakh’-plus units that are not registered under VAT will find the going even tough. The data collected by the Department of Economics and Statistics shows that there are 13.24 lakh units in the non-agricultural field existing outside the scope of VAT. The highest is in the manufacturing sector, nearly 4.9 lakh. Retail traders outside the tax radar total 6.18 lakh. Restaurants and hotels unnoticed by the tax system are 97,826. Even vehicle workshops not paying tax number a whopping 37,510 units.

“Any unit, however small, that is selling a taxable commodity to a manufacturer should take GST registration,” finance minister Dr T.M. Thomas Isaac said. Registration will also mean that these small units, most of which have manual accounting systems, will have to shift to online mode. “That will not be a problem as these units can always depend on Akshaya centres. Now, tax practitioners have also started setting up offices to provide GST help to such units,” the finance minister said.

The state has issued 2.63 lakh provisional IDs, covering nearly 80 per cent of traders. But this does not assuage the trader’s worry. “A large section of traders in the state might have got provisional IDs, but it will be of no use if their counterparts in other states like Tamil Nadu or Karnataka have not received the IDs. The invoice will have to be uploaded on both sides for us to get the input tax,” said M. Mohammed Siddique, a council member of Kerala Vyapari Ekopana Samiti.

In many of the neighbouring states, the distribution of provisional IDs has not touched even 40 per cent. “That is why for the time being, till traders are able to upload their invoice, the tax department will have to be satisfied with the sales figures the traders file,” Isaac said. As for the existing stock, the finance minister said that traders had been asked to file a stock statement on June 30. “A compensation will be worked out on the basis of the VAT rate they had already paid,” Isaac said.